Sanctuary
by Mrs. Abject
Summary: There's more to her than the fighter. Oneshot, pre-game, Nel/Clair.


**Sanctuary  
**

Rating: T  
Warnings: Nel/Clair, nonexplicit sex, violence, pre-game which means established Nel/Clair at the time of the game, possible canon errors.  
Disclaimer: I don't own Star Ocean 3, and am not making a profit off of writing this stuff.  
A/N: This takes place pre-game, with a slightly younger Nel and Clair and the war not quite official yet. I tried to avoid canon errors, but Star Ocean 3 canon is a little convoluted, so some may have gotten through anyway. This is my first fic for the game and the pairing, so please give me some feedback about how to improve.  
Thanks to Solace for the title and beta.

* * *

It was supposed to be a run-of-the-mill mission, nothing new.

Really, Nel didn't even have to _do_ anything. The plan this time was simple: she'd disguise herself, get into Airyglyph, and find out as much as she could about the status of the hostilities. If she could find it out from civilians, even, then so much the better. Civilians were the real power behind any country, Clair had explained, and their opinion was the best way to predict whether anything official was going to happen. And of course, Nel didn't have to put herself in danger if she didn't think the risk was worth it, or if she didn't think there was much to gain. That was what Clair told her, anyway.

But this wasn't _Aquaria. _Just because the civilians had a certain opinion about war didn't mean the king and his army thought the same thing. Perhaps if the civilians didn't want to go to war, the Airglyph army wouldn't be quite as effective, but the decision was still in the hands of the army, not in the hands of the people. And maybe the commoners were used to living in a place that didn't offer its citizens the same freedoms and choices that a civilized country like Aquaria did. Nel had an idea that if she'd grown up in Airyglyph, no Apris, no queen, no Crimson Guard, she'd probably have gotten accustomed to a king and an army that does whatever the hell it wants anyway, and that she'd do better going along with it than resisting. The real power behind Airyglyph was the same as the real power in front of it, and it was about as far removed from shopkeepers or housewives as it could get.

And Clair was the daughter of an agent of the queen, who'd spent her whole life hearing about politics and international relations and how different countries worked, before becoming an agent of the queen herself. She _knew_ how Airyglyph worked. She _knew_ that it wouldn't be effective for Nel to just talk to random people off the street instead of taking more risks. It was obvious, too transparent for Nel to even ask.

She remembered wondering _why_ she had all of this freedom to fail, why Clair didn't just hold her to her full potential and demand that she accomplish something, that she put herself on the line like she'd done so many times before. It wasn't like she decided to become a spy because she thought it would be _fun-_- it was what she had to do. She loved Aquaria, everything about it from the way people hadn't forgotten about religion here, to the queen and the people and _everything, _the way it felt right to be here once she'd returned from somewhere else. She was protecting her country like her father did before her, and maybe she hadn't quite finished all of her training but she knew she could take care of something as simple as just asking around. She wanted to be capable, wanted Clair to see she was capable, not just someone who really didn't belong in the middle of the war effort (although nobody could bring themselves to declare it a war yet, officially… things between the countries were just _not good. __Worsening. At a boil. _Nel considered herself something of a pragmatist, enough to admit that it was a war already, nothing could stop that, so what were we going to do about it?)She didn't just want to be humored with unnecessary tasks to keep her occupied.

For the rest of the day, she couldn't shake the worry that Clair really did think of her as somebody who needed protection, even though Clair was new to this, too, and she didn't look up to Clair any less for it—although she knew herself well enough to know that there wasn't much that could shake her faith in Clair's ability to lead, or even just the woman in general. It wasn't as if she wanted anything bad to happen to Clair, but Clair had her duties, and Nel respected that. There were... personal feelings involved, but she could push those down, let Clair do what she was there to do even if it could be dangerous... and really, _Clair_ wasn't in that much danger anyway. She thought for a moment that it wasn't fair to just keep her here_,_ but she pushed the thought down. That was childish, and that wasn't who she was. She would be mature (_fair? None of this was fair_), and if she wanted people to think her place was in the field, if she wanted Clair to think her place was in the field, well, then she would prove it.

The morning she left, Clair had been waiting for her at the kitchen table. They'd said their good mornings, and Nel tried to avoid the topic of the mission, because she knew what Clair would say to her. You don't need to do this. We can win without you risking your life. Stay here with me.

They drank their tea and avoided the subject.

"Nel, I'm sure Aquaria is grateful you want to be part of this," Clair finally got around to saying, "but are you really sure about this? It's dangerous, you know…" This wasn't the first mission Nel had been on, and even if she hadn't always been alone, she had been in situations far more dangerous than this one, and… it was hard to be frustrated at Clair. They'd been a team as long as Nel could remember, from when they'd been kids running around playing games Nel could now only vaguely recall (but she could remember playing them with Clair, and that was what mattered) to even now, although Clair didn't seem to want Nel to be a part of this. It was better not to feel frustrated, and it was better not to feel hurt, but Nel couldn't help but feel a little of both.

"I've already told you, this is important to me," Nel replied, and then added an "I'll be fine", with a smile. Clair smiled back and told her she really didn't _have_ to, but Nel persisted, and after having known each other so long, Clair probably just knew better than to argue with Nel when she was determined. The mission was on, Nel was leaving, and maybe it seemed a little dangerous to send her in as things were, but once she got back, it would be obvious that the mission had been a good idea, Apris willing. Obvious that it wasn't right for Clair to hold her back.

Clair smiled again and reached out, and Nel leaned forward into her arms. It wasn't unusual—Clair was the sort to hug, and even though Nel wasn't the sort to hug, she liked being close to Clair. And Nel didn't want to admit she could be swayed so easily, but… this was nice, and the bothered sort of feeling Nel had before dissolved away. For the moment, she didn't want to leave, not with Clair's arms around her, and Clair's hair tickling her face, and something that was okay just as it was without needing her to fight for it. She was nervous still, but it was a different sort of nervous, a more pleasant sort of nervous centered around just being with Clair, not on the war or the mission or whether she would measure up to what her country needed, what her father could have given it. She was just Nel, just Nel in Clair's arms, and she loved the way this made her feel.

It had been going on for months like this, really. Longer, if Nel counted the way she'd thought of Clair throughout her teenage years, before she could tell that Clair had been thinking the same kind of things. After all, even if Clair was the same way as Nel (thank Apris in the heavens that they lived somewhere civilized instead of in Airyglyph), fourteen had been quite a bit younger than sixteen, and she'd contented herself with being Clair's braver little sister, her best friend (with stealing glances and imagining what it would be like), until she realized that twenty wasn't that much younger than twenty-two, that Clair had been looking towards Nel the same way, out of the corner of her eye when she didn't think Nel was paying attention (can't fool a spy-in-training, dear). Ever since then, that moment where Nel saw it and then Clair saw it and then it was undeniable, it had been little touches and hugs and the times they held hands when they really didn't _need_ to, awkward pauses and careful rewording, excuses for Nel to go back to her room alone before it was too late at night, because no matter what Nel wanted to waste her nights on, she was an Aquarian and Neville's daughter and that had to come first.

Seconds passed. Nel pulled away, a bit unwillingly but conscious of how long she'd spent letting Clair hold her, how she might just be seeming to care just a little bit too much. Maybe… no, no maybe about it, it wasn't a bad thing. But it was a distraction nonetheless. The mission. She remembered the mission. Duty wasn't about doing what you wanted to do, it was about doing what you had to do, and her father would not have just neglected the mission to stay around and… spend time with somebody she cared about? Was that the right way to put it? At any rate, she'd had it wrong. Things weren't fine the way they were. Clair didn't seem to think Nel should take any missions too dangerous for even a new recruit, and maybe Clair didn't like her any less for it, but Airyglyph hated her people and it still wasn't fine. Maybe Nel wanted to pull Clair closer and kiss her hard and leave the mission to someone who wouldn't be offended by it, but it still wasn't fine.

"Don't worry, Clair," Nel said as she left, while Clair smiled resignedly and wished her luck. She trusted Clair not to put her in any more danger than she could handle, even to err on the side of caution, and really, Clair didn't need to know that Nel suddenly realized that even in relatively safe missions, there _was_ a degree of danger, there was a chance she'd never be so close to Clair again, never tell her outright, kiss her, do more than kiss her... Nel wanted to say something, just in case, but she didn't know exactly what she meant to say. Or maybe she did, but she didn't know how to put it into words, or maybe even if she did, it wasn't something appropriate to say before leaving like this. Nel didn't fancy herself the type to brood, or to struggle to put her words in order. If she couldn't say it, or even know exactly what it is she wasn't able to say, then Clair didn't need to know what Nel meant to say (or, more likely, already knew it exactly).

* * *

It was supposed to be an easy mission, but nothing was ever _that_ easy, and Nel figured it was probably her overconfidence that was where things had started going wrong, even though she had never thought herself to be the type to make that kind of mistake. Her disguise had been perfect, or at least she had thought it was (even those new girls, the one with the short hair and the other with the squeaky voice, said they wouldn't have been able to tell she was the same person if they hadn't known the plans), but either somebody had recognized her, or somebody had tipped them off, or maybe there was something distinctly Aquarian about the way she acted, or she wasn't used to the climate and shivered a bit too much, or maybe she just was acting suspicious, or maybe the whole plan was flawed and that anyone who asked too many questions was someone who wasn't supposed to know the answers —it was important to consider all the possibilities of why it went wrong for next time, if there _was_ a next time, but it didn't really matter why the city's guards had determined Nel a threat, since the guards _had_ determined Nel a threat, and tensions had already been high enough. The discovery of an Aquarian spy wouldn't help, and Nel knew that if she wasn't able to get out of the city quickly enough, she wouldn't be leaving it at all.

She didn't think any of them actually knew someone from the Sanmite Republic enough to spot the fake (a native could tell, the agent who helped her get her disguise in order had said, and possibly someone with close friends living in Sanmite), but maybe not all of them knew someone could live in Sanmite without having wings or a raccoon tail. Maybe they just saw she was foreign, and that was enough to arouse suspicion. There weren't many foreigners in Airyglyph... but there wasn't a way around that. She thought there was a chance that she could convince Glyphians she was from Sanmite (and who knows, maybe she did, maybe even that would be enough to get them angry nowadays), but she knew she couldn't convince them she was one of their own. Even if she didn't have enough training to successfully convince the Glyphians that she had nothing to do with Aquaria and she wasn't after anything, she knew that when somebody was talking to a guard and looking at her out of the sides of their eyes exactly unlike the way Clair did, and when two or three of them were starting to converge around the streets Nel kept in the back of her mind as a possible escape, then she had been spotted and there wasn't any point in trying to remain inconspicuous and it was time to get out of there as fast as she could. So Nel bolted.

_Oh god, _she thought. _If they find me, they'll have evidence against us... _It wasn't just about her getting caught anymore. She didn't want to die, she _didn't want to die_, but Aquaria would be fine without a Nel. Aquaria wouldn't be fine if the guards captured Nel and forced the information out of her whatever way they could (whips? thumbscrews? knives?) and she didn't want to break, but any good spy knew that they would probably break anyway. Anyone who knew the way Airyglyph treated their prisoners (especially Aquarians, especially women, especially anyone who knew something they didn't) knew that telling them everything wouldn't necessarily make them stop... but this was about Aquaria, not her, and even if they didn't take her alive (_Please, Apris, don't let them take me alive_) all they'd need to do was pull up her skirta little, to know where she was really from.

One of them was definitely slower than her, and she was able to outrun him with ease. The others were quicker, and she found herself running at top speed, turning corners down unfamiliar streets and alleys and hoping that she could lose her pursuers… civilians were watching, staring at the chase, and all hopes of just going undetected were off. The clothes they'd put her in were too bulky and heavy, and maybe they had to be in order to hide her tattoos, but it had been years since she needed to run in a long skirt. She couldn't help feeling like she'd trip on the hem at any moment, fall on her face and they'd catch up and get her and never let her get back, never, no more Aquios, no more Clair, no more anything because she'd be dead (quickly if she was lucky, slowly if she was unlucky, gone either way), but this wasn't about her, wasn't about what they would do to her, it was about her country. There just wasn't time to stop and grab the extra fabric of her skirt so she could run faster. And the snow… they didn't have anywhere in Aquaria that snowed all of the time, and the people pursuing her were used to the ice and wouldn't trip…

If she got back, _if_ she got back, then she would tell Clair and Adray and everyone else that if they were going to send people into Airyglyph, then they had better get them used to what it would be like, and find a more appropriate disguise while they were at it.

Nel weighed her options. She could fight, but then they'd get a better look at her face, and the only good thing about the awful, heavy disguise was that they'd remember a Nel that maybe looked like she was from the Sanmite Republic. Could she take on—how many of them were there, three, four?—all at the same time and still get away? Possibly... but not probably, and she couldn't risk it. She had to just keep running, that was the only option. She had to try to lose them, and then hopefully they would just remember some criminal or troublemaker or suspicious character, not she herself and how she looked and sounded and acted…

She stopped in an alleyway, catching her breath. There didn't seem to be anyone around, and maybe she'd lost them. Whatever the case, she couldn't stay there for long. Maybe she could just sneak out of the city, and things would be just fine with nobody following her. It couldn't have been very far to the city gates. She calculated the distance in her head—it was just a couple of blocks. She could do this. She could make it. It was embarrassing to come back and admit she'd been spotted, but she couldn't really help it at this point. All she could do was keep it from getting any worse. Nel tried to ignore the temperature, but even with the extra layers of clothing, she couldn't forget how damn cold it was. She became acutely aware of those things she would miss if she were to… never get back. She wouldn't have to put herself in danger again, wouldn't have to see the inevitable conflict break out… but if it did, she wouldn't want to be even _more_ useless by not being there at all. Her father wouldn't have been useless, and if she died now, she'd never live up to being a Zelpher, never get another chance. It wasn't like the books she liked to read, not at all-- just because her dad went missing in the line of duty (and with Airyglyph, they all knew what that meant) didn't mean she was invincible, didn't mean she'd get to avenge him.

"Stop!" came a voice from behind her. It was a guard, just one guard who'd caught up to her ahead of the others (or maybe she really _had_ lost the rest; it didn't matter at this point.) He said something-- Nel couldn't tell entirely what-- and grabbed her by the arm. She struggled for a moment... but there wasn't time.

"Get over here!" he yelled. "I've got her!"

She struggled and broke his grip, and he lunged and grabbed at her again, holding on to her hair, her clothes, her neck, and every time, she pulled herself away but then he was on her again and the footsteps were getting closer every moment_. _She saw black armor out of the corner of her eye.

There were so many things that she would never get to do again now. Things she'd thought there'd be time for, someday, things she didn't particularly want to do _now_, but didn't reject for good, things that weren't for her until it was sure she wouldn't have the opportunity Things like when a few nights ago, she couldn't sleep and left her room to find something to occupy her time, a practice fight or new recruits in need of advice or even paperwork, when what she found was Clair, who couldn't sleep either. Who had let Nel come back to her room with her, who had talked and laughed with Nel and kept her company, who had sat close enough to Nel to make her excited and apprehensive all at once, legs touching, hands touching, and who, after telling Nel she _appreciated _her, and she _cared about her so much_, had nervously touched the back of Nel's head and pulled her in closer.

"C-Clair," Nel had told her, stammering. "I've got work to do tomorrow!" She'd disentangled herself, turned away and headed back to her own room, only to stare at the darkened ceiling for another hour or two. Clair had looked disappointed, and Nel had felt exactly the same, but there was almost a war, and her country needed her and she couldn't get distracted, she just couldn't...

But she'd never see Clair again, or talk to her or tell her she _appreciated_ her too, and the kiss she wouldn't allow herself to stop belonging to Aquaria for was the last chance she'd ever get.

She felt almost outside of herself, like if she was watching another person do what was only necessary, except from a different, closer sort of view, when she slipped the dagger out of her boot, and cut the guard's throat. She didn't want to look at him dying, hear him dying, didn't want to know how the other guards (some with even less experience than her) would crowd around him and try to stop the bleeding instead of following her, didn't really want to think, just pushed him away and ran and ran and ran and before she knew it, she was out of there. Before she knew it, she was heading back home.

* * *

The first thing Nel noticed when she was back in Arias was how pretty the town was, which was something she'd never really thought about before. Aquaria in general was a beautiful place, and she knew _that, _but Arias really was something special for a rural little town. It wasn't like the capital city she knew so well, with the white stones and the pristine little houses, but it was her home country. It was part of 'd come so close to not being able to see it again, but she was there, and it was beautiful, really beautiful, even with its familiarity. In fact, its familiarity was part of what made it beautiful, and she knew it but that didn't change the warm feeling in her chest.

The second thing that caught her eye was the people waiting just inside the city gates. It was those new girls… what had their names been? One of them was Farleen, but she couldn't really recall which one was Farleen, and she couldn't remember the other one's name. She thought, grimly, that probably either one of them, Farleen or not, should have gone instead of her. Maybe Farleen could have stayed unnoticed... or perhaps it was just chance. Maybe Nel was just unlucky that day. Maybe it was just something that would have inevitably happened, even if she'd been better at what she was doing, or had another couple of years under her belt. Maybe even her father would have been caught and chased, too, maybe he'd have had to resort to an... undesirable solution, even.

The third thing she noticed was the way they'd stared at her a little bit longer than necessary, and the way their expressions changed as she got a little bit closer, from happy to see her to shocked and slack-jawed, and then she looked down and saw the fourth thing, the blood spilled all down her clothes.

She only did what she had to do. Really, she only did what she had to do… but she'd killed someone. She'd be able to go see Clair, and she'd be able to give a full report on the mission and what she'd learned and how they could keep from getting seen a little better.

The truth was, Nel had never killed anyone before. The truth was, Nel had never gotten so close to being killed herself.

She knew it was a reality of her profession that sooner or later she had to kill or be killed. She wasn't soft. It wasn't that the idea itself was so horrible, and it certainly wasn't that she felt guilty over killing the guard. After all, it was bound to happen eventually, and he would have just as soon killed _her_, or called the other guards—and he couldn't have been stupid enough not to know what would happen to her, then. She just… thought if she was cautious enough, if she was a good enough spy, that things would be on her ground. That she'd attack when she needed to and stay hidden when she needed to, but that the choice would be in her own hands. She didn't know a mission could go so badly so suddenly. She didn't know that she could lose everything she'd never even tried to have in only seconds. Could this really be all there was? Could there really be nothing more to her than something that could be torn away in the blink of an eye?

Maybe she would be the job eventually, but she thought she would have had more time to slip into the role before the things she did would be so… so…

She couldn't think of the right word for it. She wouldn't cry or fall apart, she just really, really needed to concentrate because it would take a lot of effort not to think about it now... she'd get back to her room, get some sleep, and then maybe it would be enough to be able to deal with it, to stay calm. She'd pray. It didn't matter, after all, if she would die. Apris would take her in and keep her by his side. She kept her composure as she walked to where she would be staying, making sure she appeared to as befitted an agent of the queen, calm and on duty despite the blood. Once behind her door, she shivered uncontrollably.

First things first, she decided, and took off the disguise piece by piece; first the cloak, then the long skirt, then the shirt that hid the tattoos on her arms. It was a comfort that they had absorbed most of the blood. Nel herself, stripped down to her undergarments, was mostly still clean. She looked again at the clothes. It was a comfort, but a small comfort.

She'd run a bath, that's what she would do. She'd get in the water and try to relax, to concentrate on something else, to not think about how terrifying that had been, to not accept that she had, in fact, killed someone, and had come pretty close to dying herself…but even that didn't change much. The feel of the warm water on her skin didn't change the dull shock underneath. She sat in the tub and waited to feel better, waited to feel ready to put this behind her and go on another mission...

…and it probably really was time for her to get up and give her report. They'd be worried about her, Clair and Adray and the others, and she didn't want to make them worry. She'd report and deal with it and get on with her life. Perhaps a normal girl would have time to brood, but Nel knew what she was taking on when she signed up for this job. She knew she'd lost the ability to be a normal girl. It just… hadn't really seemed to matter yet.

Maybe she could just go to sleep, and when she woke up, her thoughts would be somehow clearer. It didn't seem probable, and it was probably stupid to sit around and be sad rather than to just get done what she needed to. She put on a nightdress and huddled under the blankets anyway, hoping there was some sort of practical way to get over it and quick. It made sense, yes, but it just wouldn't work for her not only to screw up the mission, but to be upset about screwing up, maybe even bringing everyone down with her. That was perhaps the thing about the Crimson Blade that had made the biggest impression upon Nel—they looked after each other. They wouldn't be mad, or kick her out. No, they probably wouldn't even blame her, because she had been able to find out _something_ at least, had gotten the information they'd asked for even if she'd been chased and had drawn too much attention to herself for someone who had thought she was good at this. But they'd assign her easier and easier tasks, things that really anybody could do, and something so embarrassing as Clair thinking so little of her was worse than whatever anger anyone could have…

Nel had half-convinced herself that she was halfway to falling asleep if she just pushed it out of her mind a little more when there was the knock at the door. She rolled over, tried to ignore it, then against her better judgment untangled the blankets and sat up.

"Nel?" called a voice from beyond the door. Soft, concerned. Clair. Nel didn't want to talk to her, not yet, not until everything was under control and professional and for the sake of the good fight, because this was _Clair_ after all… but because this was Clair, even telling her politely to come back later because she really wasn't in the mood to talk about it seemed unimaginably cold.

"Come in," Nel said. Her voice sounded a lot weaker and sadder than it had the right to, and even though she knew she wouldn't just shut Clair out, she couldn't understand why she wouldn't, except she _did_, because it hadn't been Aquaria she'd thought of when that soldier had his hands on her and was holding her back.

Clair sat down on the bed next to her, draped her arm around Nel's shoulder in a comforting manner, pulling her close. It really wasn't anything different than Clair would have done for somebody else, but it was for Nel now, and she almost jerked away-- almost, but she let herself be held.

"Nel, what's wrong?" Clair asked. "What happened?" And Nel was nervous again, but it was the Clair-sort of nervous that really wasn't a bad thing. She stuttered a moment, then started her report, only it wasn't really like that because it was just her and Clair, and Clair was holding her and at some point, Nel had stopped talking in that businesslike voice she tried to keep and had started just telling Clair what happened. She might have been crying. She didn't know. She felt her voice break, and her nose was runny, but she was trying hard not to cry because it would make the situation even worse, and she'd look like a baby besides. But it almost didn't matter, because she didn't really _want_ to always have to be so professional around Clair all the time. She just wanted… she just wanted…

"I just wanted to do a good job!" she said, and _that_ wasn't it at all, but she couldn't tell Clair what she'd meant. She hadn't really explained that she needed to feel she was needed, to pull her own weight and to not just be around because Clair would never turn her away… and yet, she couldn't put it into words how much it meant to her that Clair would never turn her away, and yeah, she really was crying now. "I didn't want to let them all down…"

"It's okay," said Clair, sitting up a bit straighter. "You didn't let us down. We found out one thing, at least—they're on edge enough to send out the guards over one suspicious character, practically preparing for something to happen, and it was just as much our fault as yours if the disguise didn't work…" She was grasping at straws, trying to find a way this wasn't Nel's fault.

"I messed up," said Nel. Please, if Clair would just let her take responsibility…

"It didn't go well," said Clair. "That doesn't mean…"

"You didn't even want me to go," Nel said. Clair put her other arm around Nel, too, and pulled her close, let Nel lean against her, and Nel accepted it, allowed Clair to comfort her. Against her better judgment, the part of her that wanted to be hardened and self-sufficient (because she'd need to be that way, if she kept with this. She already hadn't been that way nearly enough, and she'd thought she was getting there, too), she relaxed into it, resting her head on Clair's shoulder and settling her arms around Clair, too. There were so many more important things for her to worry about, and of course to Nel this was about her father, and of course it was about her country, too, in the big ways, but in the little ways, maybe if Clair approved of her, it would mean she really deserved to be liked that much. It clouded her mind, took her away from what was really important, but that was okay. Maybe that was what she'd wanted to tell Clair before she'd left.

"I didn't want you to feel that you had to," Clair replied. "You don't have to do _everything_, Nel! It's okay if you don't sign up for every mission. You aren't your dad, and you don't have to live up to anyone, or…" She stopped, and Nel looked up at her to find Clair looking back, and perhaps Clair didn't really know what to say now, either, although Clair was rarely at a loss for words. "You're an amazing person of your own right." Of course they'd been this close before, but there was something different about it now, and after a couple seconds too long, Clair bent down her head a little, and brushed her lips against Nel's forehead.

This wasn't a real kiss. It was sisterly, something Clair knew that Nel wouldn't turn away because she had no reason to. It wasn't like last night.

"I-I mean," Clair continued, and Nel could feel that she was shaking a little, although she did not pull away, "I mean, you don't have to become something you aren't, or… or risk your life, or…"

"It's fine," Nel replied, genuinely smiling now, jolted and calm and just as red as Clair, all somehow at the same time, because it didn't really matter if she proved herself or not, because this wasn't based on proving herself. There was something about her that wasn't what she could or couldn't do, and Nel could have picked it out if she dug deep enough, but she didn't have to, Clair cared about her and they were here, together, and something about the rest of the day seemed rather silly in retrospect. Something she might not have been putting off, but instead simply been too scared to pursue... that seemed silly in retrospect, too.

"Clair," Nel started, turning so she sat across from her. "Can I?"

She didn't even need to finish the question. Clair leaned forward and Nel leaned forward and their lips met, and _finally, _and somehow it wasn't like the other awkward kisses Nel had with passing crushes and teenage dates, somehow they seemed to fit together perfectly, and it was so much sillier that they'd been wasting their time with... whatever they were wasting their time with, because it felt so amazing to be kissing Clair like this and touching Clair like this, and Clair was doing something with the straps of her nightdress but it was okay, it was all okay because it felt so good and perfect and wonderful and she didn't want anything more than this, she didn't want to be an agent of the queen tonight, she just wanted to be Clair's.

"Is... is this okay?" Clair asked, and Nel just nodded because she was too breathless even for a simple "please."

* * *

A night ago, Nel had turned Clair down because, in her words, she had work to do tomorrow. This time, there really would be work-- after all, Nel had just come back from a mission, and there would be reports to be given and papers to be filed-- but Nel didn't stop to think about it, and even if she had stopped to think about it, she probably would have decided to spend the night with Clair anyway. Clair had been more experienced than Nel, and for a moment or two, Nel felt a fierce jealousy for whatever lovers Clair had been with in the past. But that was ridiculous. Clair was with her now.

In the books Nel read, the ones that weren't about soldiers or espionage, but about people (the ones she didn't want anyone to see her read, unless those people were soldiers or spies), people who sometimes spent the night with other people, they'd often wake up surprised to have another person in their bed. This didn't happen to Nel. Falling asleep and through her dreams and upon waking, she'd remembered what had happened, remembered the feel of everything she and Clair had done together, and she wasn't surprised at all to see Clair next to her in bed, cuddled against her.

She was Nel Zelpher, daughter of Neville Zelpher, and she was a fighter through and through. But maybe after this.... she could be more than that, as well. She'd killed someone and she'd have to think about it sooner or later, but for now, she could just let it be, forget about the rising tensions between the nations and just let herself spend time with Clair in peace, let herself be happy and at home and even perhaps sort of giddy—and yes, they'd have to deal with it eventually, but for now it was enough to make Nel happy to know that Clair felt it too. She settled back contentedly against Clair, head still on Clair's shoulder, against her soft silver hair. Clair stirred against her, whispering something in her sleep that might have been Nel's name.

Nel was an agent of the queen, and she'd fight for Aquaria. That wasn't about to change.

And now she'd have another reason to keep protecting it.


End file.
